Hamming’s “You and Your Research” and Herbert Simon’s “The Scientist as Problem Solver” are good “How I do research” papers. Hamming’s paper was described in the other comments. Simon won both a Turing award and a Nobel prize.
Simon’s paper is here: http://repository.cmu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1425&context=psychology Hamming’s: http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html
The concept being described in the article sounds very similar to deliberate practice, which I think might be described as keeping what you are trying to practice at conscious level instead of going on autopilot.
Many of those studies are actually based on chess, so if this describes how deliberate practice changes the brain, it should also map to higher level activities.
Of course, I’m not terribly familiar with all of the relevant science either.